Background
Research by the Vienna Vaccine Safety Initiative (ViVI) revealed that practicing pediatricians spend on average one hour per eight-hour workday on vaccine safety consultations. Less than half of these doctors had ever received any formal training in this area. Most felt that they did observe adverse events following immunization (AEFI) during clinical practice, but less that 20% were aware of the accurate AEFI reporting pathway.
In the absence of physician know-how, safety signals will likely get misreported or misdirected.
A joint project with the School of Design Thinking in Potsdam, Germany, revealed that young parents as well as physicians and medical students often avoid the “v-topic" altogether, out of fear of a contentious debate.
Furthermore, the unfortunate timing of the first vaccine conversation after the birth of a child may further impair adequate risk communication due to information overload, parental sleep-deprivation, and exhaustion. Closer collaboration with prenatal care providers (obstetricians and midwives) will be crucial.
Doctors tend to consider patients and their caregivers as passive vaccine recipients than active partners in health with “stakes in the game".
Lastly, vaccine consultations are poorly reimbursed, and the time and training available to physicians to listen to the patient voice is often insufficient.
In the absence of physician know-how, safety signals will likely get misreported or misdirected.
A joint project with the School of Design Thinking in Potsdam, Germany, revealed that young parents as well as physicians and medical students often avoid the “v-topic" altogether, out of fear of a contentious debate.
Furthermore, the unfortunate timing of the first vaccine conversation after the birth of a child may further impair adequate risk communication due to information overload, parental sleep-deprivation, and exhaustion. Closer collaboration with prenatal care providers (obstetricians and midwives) will be crucial.
Doctors tend to consider patients and their caregivers as passive vaccine recipients than active partners in health with “stakes in the game".
Lastly, vaccine consultations are poorly reimbursed, and the time and training available to physicians to listen to the patient voice is often insufficient.
Concept
For busy medical students and physicians, it will be critical to have educational materials easily accessible and available. SEKI will develop short video content, podcasts and other teaching formats that will facilitate vaccine training and continuing medical education on the go. For those who practice regularly and successfully, a point system with incentives will be provided to help vaccine-hesitant healthcare workers to prioritize vaccine-related educational content.
Goals
- To develop a shared European platform for vaccine-related education and training activities for healthcare workers and medical students
- To create a shared infrastructure (website and app) and social media incentives encouraging healthcare workers and medical students to improve their knowledge on immunisation, vaccine communication, immunisation safety, and vaccine preventable diseases.
- To build the foundation for a European accreditation and evaluation system for continuing medical education and medical student education related to vaccines and immunisation